ANA Finds Most Clients Ignorant About ‘Sourced Traffic,’ Calls On Agencies To ‘Educate’ Them

May 19, 2016

The vast majority of the biggest national advertisers either are only vaguely familiar with or are completely ignorant about the role so-called “sourced traffic” is playing in their digital media buys, according to findings of a member study being released this morning by the Association of National Advertisers.

The ANA, which has been issuing warnings and updates on the practice, which involves publishers acquiring audiences from other third parties and representing it as their own to fulfill commitments to advertisers, because it frequently is a source of fraudulent or non-human traffic generated by bots and other insidious an unsavory practices.